Skrap
Originally uploaded by schickr.
In a bin, near a bunch of forgotten municipal gear, way off the beaten track, at the edge of a forgotten forest.
Loco about Loca
John Evans and Mika Raento – think Merkitys and Jaiku, think hypercreative mobile craftsmen – and colleagues are onto another interesting project (link below).
It’s an interesting exploration into surveillance and exhibitionism, the balance between privacy and wanting to be seen.
Here are some photos of their adventures.
Link: Loca – About Loca.
Loca is a pervasive surveillance project that currently exploits Bluetooth technology. To best participate in the loca project you will need to set bluetooth to ‘discoverable’ on your cell phone.
…
As pervasive surveillance is potentially both sinister and positive at the same time, Loca’s intent is both playful and serious. It aims to raise awareness of the networks we inhabit, and provoke people into questioning them.
Loca asks how do people respond to being tracked and observed? How ready are people to observe others? Who is the user, and how? Do we get fear of surveillance, disinterest, scopophobia or scopophilia? How does contextual data relate to people’s everyday experiences? What happens in-between physical, embodied space and the digital space of abstract data?
Oh, Lord, drop me a squirrel.
Oh, Lord, drop me a squirrel.
Originally uploaded by schickr.
How to post to different services using the Nseries uploader
The N93 came out with a nifty little uploader that is integrated into the send function on the phone (I now use it on an N73). I’m not going to get into the plusses or minuses of the uploader, but now that I work with a lot of the folks involved in it, I expect I can give some direct input into its evolution.
The uploader uses the same Atom protocol developed for the Lifeblog posting protocol. Hence, just as with Lifeblog, you can point the uploader to any service that understands the posting protocol.
The key thing is to know the Atom API entry point. You can set this URL in the uploader Setting, under Advanced. There you can set all the service provider entry points (see the ones I know of below).
Here are the services I have used the uploader for:
flickr
It comes preset with the flickr settings. On your side, you need to get the special password to do the posting (go to the flickr Lifeblog page).
Username: your login email you use for flickr
Password: the special ‘Lifeblog’, Atom password you can find on the flickr Lifeblog page
Web address: http://www.flickr.com/services/atom/
The Web address that is used as default is to post only to your flickr account. But, I like to post to flickr and then have flickr send it to my website. You set this in flickr somewhere, where it lets you determine where to automatically post your uploaded or emailed images. It’s called ‘flickr to blog’.
To set your uploader to use flickr to blog (or any of the other ones I mention below), you need to set up a new service provider in your uploader settings.
flickr to blog
Username: your login email you use for flickr
Password: the special ‘Lifeblog’, Atom password
Web address: http://www.flickr.com/services/atom2blog/
Since the whole Lifeblog protocol was worked out with the folks at Six Apart, you can also use the uploader to post to TypePad and Vox (I’ve never figured out how to do it to MoveableType, though).
TypePad
Username: your TypePad username
Password: your TypePad password (now, that makes sense)
Web address: http://www.typepad.com/t/atom/weblog/ (the same one preset in Lifeblog, natch)
Vox
Username: your login email you use for Vox
Password: your Vox password
Web address: http://www.vox.com/atom/
The uploader is smart enough to resolve all the sites you might have on your TypePad account. Also, I think it’s cute how the Vox account comes back named (for me) ‘charlie’s playground’.
A tip:
You can get to the uploader (at least on the N73) via the Gallery. There’s a ‘Open online service’ way down the Gallery Options menu.
Lifeblog or the uploader?
It depends.
Lifeblog is more ‘after the fact’, while the uploader kicks-butt in that it’s integrated into the camera ‘send’ menu item. So, the uploader makes it really easy to send up a photo, just after you’ve taken it.
But, the uploader doesn’t let you change the orientation of the photo before you upload – you need to actually edit the image first in the Gallery before uploading it. That’s not fun.
I’m used to Lifeblog which makes it really easy to rotate the image (easier than Gallery) and then upload a bunch of images at once. If you just want to upload a bunch of images at once, then you can do that from Gallery.
So, I guess, it depends on what photo you took, how you want to upload it.
That’s all for now. Feel free to comment and add other services and Atom entry points (them Web addresses), too. Just remember, I’m not providing support here (though I’ll try to help if I can). I’m just writing this stuff down because I had a hard time finding all this info and would like to have it in one place. And you can read up on how to do stuff with this uploader on flickr’s site. They have some nice guides.
BTW, these Web addresses also apply for Lifeblog. So, you can also set up Lifeblog to post to flickr and Vox in the same way.
WidSets adds more stuff
Just got a note in my mailbox that WidSets updated and added a bunch of things (link below).
On paper, it all looks promising. I’ve just updated everything, did a clean out of my old wids and popped in a few more, like the Manhattan Story Mashup wid.
Get the Story wid:
Let’s see how they’ve been growing. They’re young, but if they are on the right path, and if we are patient enough to give them the time, there is hope that they can kick some tusch.
Link: WidSets.
The WidSets service was launched a little over 3 months ago, and now is time for the third release, meaning it’s time to reload your mobile client and make the most out of the new improved WidSets.
… After about 30 mins of playing with it:
Yeah, they’ve added some cool things since I last used WidSets: alerts, being able to send a wid to someone (that’s clever), some light management of wids from the phone, and a list of the last 10 wids added (under the system wid). Even the website has added some things, like better management of wids, more ways to create wids, and, of course, a ton more wids.
And I suggest you check out their clever main page (you need to logout). They’ve highlighted a few ways to use your wids depending on if you’re a social butterfly, a blogger, or a news junkie and such.
What I can say, is that there are so many small little things that WidSets has that one might not notice, but that the WidSets team has implemented in very mobile-savvy way. This is not ‘just’ a widget app. They also have quite a bit of clever infrastructure and usability around such an app.
Keep it up guys. You’re still in the right track. Don’t let up.
BTW, if anyone manages to build a wid using the dev kit they offer, please let me know.
A Story, a Phone, a Plan: Manhattan Story Mashup
Here’s something from that some folks from Nokia are involved in. Sounds really cool. I’m looking forward to see how it develops. It combines many cool elements: mobiles, Web, people far away, people on the ground, the real world, a large display, Web and mobile tools to track the whole thing, sigh, it’s so cool.
Will it fly?
I’ll check it out next week.
Link: Manhattan Story Mashup.
Manhattan Story Mashup is an urban game, taking place on September 23rd 2006 in Manhattan, New York City. During the event, approximately 250 players will move around Manhattan, taking photos which match a given target. Targets are words from stories, written by you and other visitors on this web site collaboratively while the game goes on. The resulting illustrated stories are shown on large public signs in Times Square in real-time and on this web site.
Manhattan Story Mashup is organized by SensorPlanet, a Nokia Research Center
-initiated research program on large-scale sensor networks. We are
interested in combining the physical and the virtual worlds through new
ways of sensing. As it happens, lots of people always carry a mobile
phone with them, making it a perfect platform for this job. This game
is a cool way to test our tools and theories in practice with a large
number of people. Naturally we’re also interested in sharing fun with
other people in the Come Out and Play Festival, which gathers together many games like this in September.
Oh, dang. I just saw that Jürgen Sheible is one of the designers. I interviewed him for an article a long time ago. Geez, I gots to catch up with him.
Infoworld reports on: Least-developed countries getting connected
Here’s a nice short summary of a recent report by the ITU on emerging market take-up of communication services.
There are some interesting items, such as in Bhutan, delivering emails as post. Quite interesting.
I need to get my hands on that report.
Many of the world’s least-developed countries have made "remarkable progress" towards achieving mobile-phone and Internet connectivity goals set out by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
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"The mobile sector in [the least-developed countries] has grown considerably and access to the Internet has also increased," the ITU said. The organization plans to release later today a detailed report on telecommunication and Internet connectivity in the world’s poorest countries.
Seems like the ITU also has a few initiatives in emerging markets. Neat.
Paul on: Industry BS – Thoughts about the future of mobile
Good commentary.
Read it.
Link: MyPhoneRocks dot com � Industry BS – Thoughts about the future of mobile.
Today, along with your mobile service provider, you decide on a few things related to your service. You agree with them on the number of minutes you get, whether or not you get to access the internet, and how much it costs. If you like the service, coverage, and price then you take the deal or go somewhere else.
However, once you sign up, your service provider makes the rest of the decisions for you. They decide what ring tones you get to choose from, what games you get to play, what browser you get to use, what music you get to listen to, whether you get to upload photos to Flickr or Kodak, and on and on it goes.
Blindspot: Mobile broadcast TV
Broadcasting media (audio or video) is over, it’s dying, the way we consume media has changed irreversibly.
Ok, so, no big revelation.
Sure, video did not kill the radio star, and Internet will not kill TV. But broadcasting is going to die as radio, TV, and the Internet move towards play-shifting and on-demand viewing.
So my question is, why are folks still bent on mobile broadcast TV?
Eh, I’ve got a few ideas why, but it still isn’t clear to me. I guess I need to do some digging.
Any thoughts? Please, enlighten me.